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Putin signed an order Thursday making the deaths of Russian troops lost during “special operations” a secret, amending a previous decree that limited such secrecy to deaths of soldiers in wartime. Some watchers can see only one plausible reason for the change: Russia is gearing up for another military push into Ukraine.
“We’re in a pre-war situation. Right now, there’s going to be another campaign in Ukraine,” said Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst based in Moscow, who added that Russia was being secret about losses because “we’re fighting a secret war.” Read much more here.
Who Took Moldovos Millions ~ The Crooks or the Kremlin
On the eve of a national election in tiny Moldova last November, $450 million — equal to 10 percent of the Eastern European country’s entire annual gross domestic product — went missing. So far, no one knows where it went.
Much was at stake in the election. Last June, Moldova’s pro-Europe government signed an association agreement with the European Union. Pro-Russia opponents favored partnership with Moscow’s Eurasian Economic Union instead. The incumbents barely won. Moscow signaled its displeasure with the EU agreement by placing an embargo on the import of Moldovan fruits, vegetables and wine.
Earlier this month, approximately 10,000 Moldovans marched in the streets of the capital, Chisinau, shouting, “Down with the thieves!” and “We want the billions back!”
Kroll, the international risk consultancy, had been engaged to do an initial private investigation. The parliament’s speaker posted this from their report: “There appears to have a deliberate plan to gain control of each of the banks and subsequently manipulate transactions to gain access to credit, whilst giving the appearance to the contrary.” Yet, the National Anti-corruption Center of Moldova claimed the report was based on rumors that leaked to local media. Read more here.
An outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin was near death Friday from an apparent poisoning just three months after his close political ally was gunned down near the Kremlin, and supporters want him evacuated to Europe or Israel to determine what sickened him.
Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., who has long been based in Washington, was in a hotel in Moscow when he suddenly lost consciousness May 26 and was hospitalized with what his wife called “symptoms of poisoning.” The 33-year-old is a coordinator for Open Russia, a nongovernmental organization which on the previous day released a documentary film accusing close Putin crony and Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov of human rights abuses including torture and murder.
“Doctors have just confirmed that he was poisoned,” Andrei Bystrov, an opposition activist and friend of the Kara-Murza family, told The Telegraph. “As to what with, they can’t say yet. It could be anything.”
Kara-Murza, a dual Russian-British citizen, was a close associate of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in February.
“I am deeply concerned about the mysterious illness of Vladimir Kara-Murza, especially given the recent murder of Boris Nemtsov and the number of Putin’s opponents who have been poisoned,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said in a statement
Kara-Murza’s family was trying to get him evacuated to Europe or Israel for toxicology tests after hemodialysis failed to stop complete kidney failure. Read more here.
Russia’s recent use of nuclear rhetoric, exercises and operations are deeply troubling. As are concerns regarding its compliance with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
President Putin’s admission that he considered putting Russia’s nuclear forces on alert while Russia was annexing Crimea is but one example.
Russia has also significantly increased the scale, number and range of provocative flights by nuclear-capable bombers across much of the globe. From Japan to Gibraltar. From Crete to California. And from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
Russian officials announced plans to base modern nuclear-capable missile systems in Kaliningrad. And they claim that Russia has the right to deploy nuclear forces to Crimea.
As you read this short notice, consider that now that relations with Cuba have been formally normalized, will the next step be to turn Guantanamo over to Cuba and terminate the lease, which was designed in perpetuity?
Kerry signed the order on Cuba today placing Cuba back to a pre-Cold War status. Only 3 countries left that carry the distinction of a state sponsor of terror .
The step comes as officials from the countries continue to hash out details of restoring full diplomatic relations, including opening embassies in Washington and Havana and returning ambassadors to the two countries. Friday’s removal of Cuba from the terrorism list had been a key Cuban demand.
President Barack Obama recommended to Congress last month that Cuba be removed from the U.S. list, triggering a 45-day congressional notification period.
State Sponsors of Terrorism
Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.
Designation under the above-referenced authorities also implicates other sanctions laws that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors. Currently there are three countries designated under these authorities: Iran, Sudan, and Syria.
Country
Designation Date
Iran
January 19, 1984
Sudan
August 12, 1993
Syria
December 29, 1979
Recommendation to Rescind Cuba’s Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism
(Apr. 14): In December 2014, as a critical component of establishing a new direction for U.S.–Cuba relations, the President directed the State Department to launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and provide a report to him within six months. Last week, the State Department submitted a report to the White House recommending, based on the facts and the statutory standard, that President Obama rescind Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
Country Reports on Terrorism
U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.
The U.S. State Department keeps a summary and classification on countries. To read further on those go here.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which exposed the existence of a key Iranian nuclear weapons facility in 2002 and significant, illicit Iranian nuclear weapons developments since then, said this was the third visit to Iran in 2015 by a North Korean delegation.
Also, citing confidential information from sources inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Ministry of Defense (MoD), research and aerospace agencies, NCRI said in a statement another group of North Korean nuclear weapons experts is slated to return to Iran in June.
*** During the P5+1 talks with Iran on their nuclear program the elephant in the room has been North Korea, a rogue state that has been in full collaboration with Iran. Meanwhile, North Korea has a cyber-army capable of the same kind of destruction as any nuclear weapon or ICBMs.
An exiled Iranian opposition group said on Thursday that a delegation of North Korean nuclear and missile experts visited a military site near Tehran in April amid talks between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program.
The dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002. Analysts say it has a mixed record and a clear political agenda.
Iran says allegations that is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability are baseless and circulated by its enemies.
Iran and six world powers are trying to meet a self-imposed June 30 deadline to reach a comprehensive deal restricting its nuclear work. Issues remaining include monitoring measures to ensure it cannot pursue a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Citing information from sources inside Iran, including within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Paris-based NCRI said a seven-person North Korean Defense Ministry team was in Iran during the last week of April. This was the third time in 2015 that North Koreans had been to Iran and a nine-person delegation was due to return in June, it said.
“The delegates included nuclear experts, nuclear warhead experts and experts in various elements of ballistic missiles including guidance systems,” the NCRI said.
The Iranian embassy in France dismissed the report.
“Such fabricated reports are being published as we get closer to final stages of the talks and also because there is a high chance of reaching a final deal,” Iran’s state website IRIB quoted an unnamed Paris-based Iranian diplomat as saying.
In Washington, the State Department said it was examining the claims but had been unable to confirm them.
“These allegations, we’re taking them seriously,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters. “We have not been able to verify them thus far.”
There have previously been unconfirmed reports of cooperation between the two countries on ballistic missiles, but nothing specific in the nuclear field.
The U.N. Panel of Experts which monitors compliance with sanctions on North Korea has reported in the past that Pyongyang and Tehran have regularly exchanged ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions.
SECRECY
The NCRI said the North Korean delegation was taken secretly to the Imam Khomenei complex, a site east of Tehran controlled by the Defense Ministry. It gave detailed accounts of locations and who the officials met.
It said the delegation dealt with the Center for Research and Design of New Aerospace Technology, a unit of nuclear weaponization research, and a planning center called the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, which is under U.S. sanctions.
Reuters could not independently verify the allegations.
“Tehran has shown no interest in giving up its drive to nuclear weapons. The weaponization program is continuing and they have not slowed down the process,” NCRI spokesman Shahin Gobadi said.
U.N. watchdog the IAEA, which for years has investigated alleged nuclear arms research by Tehran, declined to comment. North Korean officials were not available for comment.
Several Western officials said they were not aware of a North Korean delegation traveling to Iran recently.
A Western diplomat said there had been proven military cooperation between Iran and North Korea in the past.
North Korean and Iranian officials meet in the course of general diplomacy. On April 23, Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state and Iran’s president held a rare meeting on the sidelines of the Asian-African summit in Jakarta.
North Korean hackers are capable of attacks that could destroy critical infrastructure and even kill people, a high-profile defector has warned.
Speaking exclusively to BBC Click, Prof Kim Heung-Kwang said the country had around 6,000 trained military hackers.
The warning follows last year’s Sony Pictures hack – an attack attributed to North Korea.
Korean technology expert Martyn Williams stressed the threat was only “theoretical”.
Prof Kim has called for international organisations to step in to prevent North Korea launching more severe attacks.
Military attack
For 20 years Prof Kim taught computer science at Hamheung Computer Technology University, before escaping the country in 2004.
While Prof Kim did not teach hacking techniques, his former students have gone on to form North Korea’s notorious hacking unit Bureau 121.
The bureau, which is widely believed to operate out of China, has been credited for numerous hacks.
Many of the attacks are said to have been aimed specifically at South Korean infrastructure, such as power plants and banks.
Speaking at a location just outside the South Korean capital, Prof Kim told the BBC he has regular contact with key figures within the country who have intimate knowledge of the military’s cyber operation.
“The size of the cyber-attack agency has increased significantly, and now has approximately 6,000 people,” he said.
He estimated that between 10% to 20% of the regime’s military budget is being spent on online operations.
“The reason North Korea has been harassing other countries is to demonstrate that North Korea has cyber war capacity,” he added.
“Their cyber-attacks could have similar impacts as military attacks, killing people and destroying cities.”
Stuxnet clone
Speaking more specifically, Prof Kim said North Korea was building its own malware based on Stuxnet – a hack attack, widely attributed to the US and Israel, which struck Iranian nuclear centrifuges before being discovered in 2010.
“[A Stuxnet-style attack] designed to destroy a city has been prepared by North Korea and is a feasible threat,” Prof Kim said.
“Although the nuclear plant was not compromised by the attack, if the computer system controlling the nuclear reactor was compromised, the consequences could be unimaginably severe and cause extensive casualties,” Prof Kim said.
Martyn Williams is a journalist who follows closely the development of technology in North Korea.
He told the BBC: “I think it’s important to underline that this is theoretical and possible from non-North Korean hackers too.
“It’s conceivable that hackers would try something and lives could be at risk.
He noted an attack in 2003 on South Korean broadcasters, which he said was “an attempt to throw the country into confusion”.
“If TV had gone off air and then ATMs stopped working, people might have panicked.”
Inside Bureau 121
When it comes to cyber-attacks, few groups are as notorious as North Korea’s Bureau 121, which has operated since the late nineties.
Most security researchers agree that the group operates out of China. Specifically, in the basement of a restaurant, rated highly on TripAdvisor for its tremendous Korean food.
Prof Kim gave several Bureau 121 members their first taste of computer science.
While he didn’t teach hacking techniques, Prof Kim gave the students knowledge of the ins-and-outs of computing, networks and data transfer.
The very best students were later plucked from his course by the military and given further, more specialist training in cyber security.
Prof Kim told the BBC he feels saddened that some of the great, “bright” minds he nurtured had their potential channelled “not into improving our internet culture, but to terrorise other people using the internet”.
But he conceded that his former students probably enjoyed their task, and took pride in “accomplishing Kim Jong-un’s orders as a cyber warrior”.
‘Off the internet’
Prof Kim has called on international organisations to take action over North Korea’s cyber-activity.
“We need to collect the evidence of North Korea’s cyber terrorism and report them to UN Human Rights Council and other UN agencies,” he told the BBC.
“If North Korea continues to cause damage in this way, an organisation such as Icann should ban North Korea.”
Icann – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – manages the distribution of domain name including .com and .net.
It could, theoretically, shut down the use of North Korea’s domain, .kp.
In a statement, Icann said its powers in this regard were limited.
“Icann does not have the power, nor remit, to ban countries from having a presence on or access to the Internet,” said Duncan Burns, its head of communications.
“Icann’s primary role is the coordination of the internet’s unique identifiers to ensure the stability, security and resiliency of the internet.
“We rely on law enforcement and governmental regulatory agencies to police reported illegal activity.”
Furthermore, disabling .kp would have minimal effect if, as is widely believed, much of North Korea’s hacking force conducts its operations outside of the country.
Other measures, such as sanctions imposed by the US in the wake of the Sony Pictures hack, might have a greater impact.
But Prof Kim added: “This issue can’t be solved by one or two countries.
“The international community needs to pay attention to North Korea’s attempts to destroy the internet.”
If you wonder why there is no strategy to defeat ISIS, it is because the White House, meaning Barack Obama and Susan Rice have formally declared that the civil war in Iraq and Syria belong to others to handle. The United States will not be responsible for securing Iraq, PERIOD.
This has been known for quite some time at the Pentagon and military leaders including the SecDefs, both Hagel and Carter have written and voiced their immediate requests for a strategy. There are liaisons between the Pentagon and Congress that provide information to key lawmakers, there is no doubt that the Pentagon is reaching out for some real help from Congress. When Senator Dick Durbin, who is anti-war requests a strategy and safe zones of the military and the White House, the case is proven, Congress is current on the bumbling by the White House with regard to ISIS.
“It’s practical militarily, but it would be a significant policy decision to do so,” Dempsey said.
Carter added, “We would need to fight to create such a space, and then fight to keep such a space.” The Pentagon readily admits the Islamic State cannot be defeated without addressing the glaring Syria question, but it has adopted an “Iraq first” strategy toward the terrorist group, focusing U.S. airpower in a country where the government requested it. But after the fall of Ramadi last weekend, more lawmakers are renewing calls for deeper U.S. military involvement, including embedding American troops with Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes.
President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day.
Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement.
To be part of the U.S. coalition, members had to offer some assistance. That assistance could be any type of cooperation with such participation as MRE’s, a terrorism training class, publishing bulletins, fighter jets, approved air-space for refueling or just holding a conference call. Exactly, what kind of help is Estonia or Greece offering? Here is the document on the coalition members and requests for involvement.
While U.S. aircraft are flying a handful of sorties a day, 70% of the aircraft return to base without dropping ordnance because of lack of approval and no quality ground-controllers delivering coordinates. We are just wasting fuel and essentially practicing an air campaign.
Our military knows how to fight this fight as they have successfully performed the operations before. Today, on the ground in Iraq are Shiite militia, Iranian proxies coordinating ground operations for the sake of their future victory, Iraq will belong to Iran, as will Syria. In the case of Syria however, the forecast is it will be a split state between Iran and Russia. The same is likely for Libya.
Today, Bashir al Assad is running an aggressive campaign to defeat al Nusra and ISIS under the promise of future financial support from Iran. Assad’s success will be fleeting at best, even while Hezbollah is aiding in some measure to protect the regime. Once again, the U.S. air operations in Syria are in coordination with Assad, consider that both state’s aircraft have been in the air at the same time. That puts the U.S. siding with Hezbollah. Yes…real twisted conditions for sure.
There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.
Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.
Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.
In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.
Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.
At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.
While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.
In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.
Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.
Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.
The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.
Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.
Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.
We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.
The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.
The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.
All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.
*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below:
